The present preferred embodiment concerns coupling closures as well as docking devices comprising these coupling closures. The preferred embodiment also concerns a flexible container and a hose comprising the coupling closures, the use of the docking devices for environmentally-sealed filling, refilling and emptying of containers as well as a method for environmentally-sealed filling, refilling and emptying of containers. The preferred embodiment moreover concerns a method for manufacture of a coupling closure.
Fluid or solid bulk materials accumulate as interim or end products in manifold methods, and, insofar as they are not supplied to their intended location or final destination via pipeline systems, an advantageous embodiment to be transported and placed in circulation in the form of packing drums of a specific size. Since some products already act on the human organism in a highly toxic manner in small quantities or react highly sensitively with air or moisture, very high requirements for environmental sealing are to be set given the refilling of such products, for example for the purpose of further processing into interim or end products. In addition to avoiding the contamination of the environment, high requirements are regularly also set with regard to the purity of the initial or interim products used, particularly in the further-processing industry, for which reason contamination due to external impurities must be avoided at every point of the method workflow and not only in the manufacture and isolation of the initial products. The risk of contamination of the environment or of products is particularly high specifically in the refilling procedure, which is why these work steps are frequently conducted under super-clean room conditions (for example in the pharmaceutical industry). The necessity of working in a contamination-free environment leads to a high machine and safety-related expenditure (particularly in the food processing, chemical or pharmaceutical industries) that inevitably negatively affects manufacturing costs.
The double flap technique as it is described in DE 695 04 581 T2 is frequently resorted to nowadays for the environmentally-sealed or at least dust-free filling or emptying of a container as well as for refilling procedures. Such docking devices according to the double flap technique are very complicated in terms of design and are thus regularly also cost-intensive.
According to DE 196 24 189 A1, docking devices of a simpler design can also be formed from a first docking element (which is designed funnel-shaped) and a second docking element which is connected to the funnel-shaped docking element positive fit, in particular forming a spherical contact area. To ensure the gas impermeability, the contact area has to possess a rubber elastic surface. Although a refilling flowing media with the docking device described in DE 196 24 189 AI works, it cannot be guaranteed that these flowing media do not enter the environment upon coupling or decoupling the docking elements.
PCT/EP01112011 describes a sealed docking device between two essentially environmentally-isolated containers that are connected via two elastically-deformable coupling elements. These coupling elements respectively possess one slit, which is closed in the ground state and which can be opened via admission of pressure. The containers to be filled or to be emptied are to be attached in the area of the slit or on the walls of the slit of the respective coupling element. Given this design docking device, particular care is to be taken to ensure that the slits of the coupling elements adjacent to one other are of equal length and come to lie precisely one atop the other.
In the unpublished German patent application with the reference number 103 21 814.9, a coupling element for the environmentally-insulated refilling, filling and/or emptying of containers is disclosed which is essentially comprised of two closure bands fitting flush with each other that possess interlocking articulation bodies at their end and which can be rotated around common bearing axis elements. The articulation axis elements or articulation caps have to be exactly matched to the shape and size bearing elements of the closure bands in order to be able to durably and reliably function as pivot bearings. Given this construction, under specific refilling conditions (for example dependent on the type of bulk material) it is to be attended to that no bulk material remains between the terminal sections of the opposing closure bands. An opening and closing of this coupling element is achieved in that the opposing articulation bodies are moved towards one another or away from one another. Only a limited opening angle can hereby be achieved due to design.
A sealed docking device between two essentially environmentally-isolated containers is to be learned from DE 201 17 669 U1, whereby each container can be connected at least in regions with a coupling element in an essentially flexible as well as sealed manner. These coupling elements, which respectively possess a transit slit, are arranged one atop the other such that, given elastic deformation of the coupling elements fitted in a sealed manner one atop the other, a transit gap for fluids is achieved. These coupling elements can respectively be provided with guidance devices on opposite side surfaces, which guidance devices engage with one another in a complementary manner.
DE 697 18 439 D2 discloses a re-sealable fastening arrangement with fastening strips that can be placed on one another, which fastening strips respectively exhibit a plurality of closure elements along the length of their inner surfaces, which closure elements can be brought into engagement with one another. DE 697 18 439 D2 is in particular intended to make available a slider for the fastening arrangement that can be moved along the fastening strips and covers these between a closed position and an open position and exhibits an upper closure surface as well as side walls that extend down from the opposite sides of the upper closure surface and take in the fastening strips between them. In order to make a simplified slider available in which the probability of leakage loss of fluids through the closure remains optimally low, the side walls of the slider have to extend from the upper closure surface down to a point under the profiles in the manner that the profiles are maintained between the side walls, and whereby a separator element has to exist in the form of a blade.
It would thus be desirable to be able resort to coupling elements and docking devices which guarantee an environmentally-sealed filling or refilling given both small and large packing drums. It would also be desirable to be able to reduce the risk of contamination even further given filling or emptying or given coupling or decoupling of coupling elements, particularly also with structurally simple, less cost-intensive solutions.